Duchess of Cambridge retraces grandmother's steps at Bletchley Park

Kate visited the codebreaking facility where her grandmother worked during
World War II, to mark the end of an £8 million restoration project

The Duchess of Cambridge retraced her grandmother’s footsteps on a visit to her former offices - Britain’s World War II code-breaking facility at Bletchley Park.

She met with codebreakers at the famous site who worked with her grandmother, Valerie Glassborow, who managed the interception of enemy signals for decryption at Bletchley.

She tried her hand at intercepting and decoding a Morse code message, donning a pair of headphones and finding the signal via a dial on the machine in front of her.

The royal tour marked the completion of a year-long, £8 million restoration project at Bletchley Park, which has returned the buildings to their Second World War appearance and created new visitor facilities. The site fell into near-dereliction after the war.

According to official documents dating back 70 years, the Duchess’s paternal grandmother, Miss Glassborow, worked as a duty officer with her twin sister Mary. Both were employed as Foreign Office Civilians in the Cover Management Y section in 1944.

She is known to have been formally employed by the ‘Government Code and Cypher School’ at Bletchley and worked in Hut 16, now restored as Hut 6 and open to the public.

The success of the centre's code-breakers in cracking the German cypher systems Enigma and Lorenz are credited with shortening the war by two years.

The Duchess was expected to meet Bletchley Park veteran Lady Marion Body, who has recalled working with Valerie and Mary, and remembers being at work with the sisters when they heard that the war in Europe had ended.

The main house at Bletchley Park (JOHN LAWRENCE)

Lady Body said: “On 15th August 1945 Valerie, Mary and I and two other girls were on the day shift, which was rather fortunate.

"Mr Williams came in, he was smiling, he said ‘Well done girls, a signal’s been intercepted going from Tokyo to Geneva; the Japanese are about to surrender.’

"We just sat there, shocked into absolute silence. He shuffled from one foot to the other - he didn’t know what to do either - then he said ‘well, bloody well get on with your work!’

“He told us a message had gone to the King and the Prime Minister. It couldn’t be announced before the message had gone on from Geneva to London because they would have known we’d been listening.

"It was a great moment, one that I’ve remembered all my life.”

Before leaving, the Duchess will be invited to plant a tree to commemorate the visit and the completed restoration.